Senator Hatch, I just wanted to make a comment about your statements. I thought they were very good. I only wish that you were on board with us right now.

Senator HATCH. I wish I was, too.

Mr. COELHO. You are an acknowledged leader in this area, and I would hope that you would be open and receptive to what is in this legislation, as I know you will. Your history has shown that.

You know the history of this bill. It was basically a direct result of a group put together by Senator Reagan-excuse me. [Laughter.] Senator HATCH. Now, he might resent that.

Mr. COELHO. He would resent that.

A group put together by President Reagan, and to my surprise they came up with a much stronger bill than we put into this Congress, as you know. As has been pointed out by Senator Simon, it was much tougher in lots of different areas, and we made substantial modifications-so much so that some of my colleagues on the House side think that I have caved in too much. So I want you to recognize that.

Hopefully, as you address the different provisions of this legislation, you will recognize the accommodations that have already been made. I think I speak for most of us in the disability community. We very much want you on board and very much need you support. Hopefully, you will be open-minded in these discussions.

We would prefer that you not introduce your own bill. I am being very direct with you. We would prefer that you work with us to reach accommodation on amendments, and I know Senator Harkin and others would be receptive to having you with us.

If I can just make a few remarks, Mr. Chairman, I would like to include my statement for the record so we can save some time for the rather more important witnesses that you have to hear from. As I pointed out in my press conference, I did not intend at the end to be so personal, but one of the things I have felt so strongly about over the years is the lack of opportunity that those of us with disabilities have to be able to prove our worth, to be able to prove that we can do things.

I was very blessed in my life. God has been good to me. But a gentleman by the name of Bob Hope gave me an opportunity at a time that I was suicidal and I was down. If Mr. Hope had not welcomed me into his family and treated me like his own, if he had not talked about the fact that I wanted a ministry but I could do the same ministry in the Government, in the Congress, and recommended that I go work for a Member of Congress, I would not be here. I know that a lot of my Republican colleagues probably would have wished that had happened. But Mr. Hope gave me that opportunity. But the thing he did for me more than anything else that anybody had done is that he believed. He had faith. And I had lost it all.

I do not think many people understand the emotion that those of us with disabilities go through. The fact that through no fault of our own we have a disability-for whatever reason, God has given us that to me it was a blessing. It has made me a stronger, tougher, more caring person that I probably would never have been.

But to be denied an opportunity to be yourself, to be able to do things, is something that a lot of people do not appreciate or under

stand. And all we are asking for is that opportunity to be productive, to be able to get on a bus, Senator Hatch, and to be able to go to work. We are not looking for welfare. We are not looking for something that other people do not have. We just want an opportunity to be able to live and be able to have an opportunity to work and to be able to go to that job and come back home and to be able to have families and to live like everybody else in this great country. Do not deny us the opportunity to be productive Americans, to be productive citizens. That is all we ask.

We know that there is going to have to be accommodations to give us our basic civil rights. We know that. We understand that. There is a cost involved. But isn't there also a cost involved with us not being able to exercise our rights? There is a tremendous cost to the Government right now in maintaining a lot of us with disabilities, because we do not have our basic rights to go out and be productive. We would rather be productive citizens, but we need your help to do it.

We need your help to make sure we have the opportunities to get to our place of residence and to get to our place of occupation and to make sure that people do not discriminate against us just because we are in a wheelchair or just because we cannot hear or just because we cannot see or just because periodically we may have seizures.

We can be productive, if you will give us that right, give us that opportunity. That is all we ask for, nothing more, but definitely nothing less.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate it.

The Chairman. I do not have any questions.

Senator Hatch?

Senator HATCH. Congressman Coelho, nobody admires you more than I do in this Congress. I have seen you as a very, very effective Member of Congress. I think you have achieved heights here that everybody recognizes, and there is not a thing you have said that I would not do, not one thing.

As a matter of fact, Senator Harkin and I have met for hours on this bill, and we are trying, and I will continue to do so. Mr. COELHO. And I think you can do it.

Senator HATCH. I hope so.

The Chairman. You can do it, Orrin. You can do it. [Laughter.] Senator HATCH. I would like to do it. He knows that; I know that; Ted knows it. I have worked too long and hard in this area not to be on a bill that will do all that you are saying. And what I have already agreed to with regard to this bill goes way beyond current law. It is going to cause a lot of people distress, but rightly so, in my opinion.

There are just some things in the bill that I think have to be changed; they have to be fine-tuned. Now, to Senator Harkin's credit, they have changed this bill considerably from what it was in the last Congress, which I think never had a chance of passing. I sometimes think we create such high expectations with some of the language that we put in these bills that it will be almost impossible to pass, or impossible, in my opinion to pass, that sometimes we do a disservice.

Now, I really believe that we can work this out so that it is everything you have asked for here today, and I will work hard to do that. But some of the concerns I am raising are very important concerns. I just do not believe the Federal Government can impose everything on everybody without some reason for doing it, and, I might say, to the disadvantage of an awful lot of society, too. But everything you are talking about I am for. Everything you have said here today I will try to do.

Mr. COELHO. Senator, let me just made one comment on what you said, if the chairman does not mind.

I do not want to disadvantage anybody.

Senator HATCH. I do not either.

Mr. COELHO. That is not what I am about. What I am about is helping people. And if there is a way not to disadvantage people in order to help those with disabilities, I want to do that. And I will be very aggressively involved in that.

But if it comes down to a point that the only way I can get somebody with a disability to a job is to impose a little sacrifice on somebody else, I want you to help me do that.

Senator HATCH. I will.

Mr. COELHO. That is all I am asking for.

Senator HATCH. I will help you to do that, and I have already gone that far. What I have problems with are some of the more stringent aspects that go way beyond current law even with regard to civil rights. And those laws are very, very broad.

Mr. COELHO. We will work with you.

Senator HATCH. Well, if you will, and Senator Harkin will continue to work with me, it may very well be that I will be able to help cosponsor this bill. And I would love nothing better.

Mr. COELHO. Thank you.

Senator HATCH. But in its present form, I cannot, and I think people realize that I am sincere in my approach here because I have been there too many times for the disability community for anybody to think I am not. And I think I am raising issues that are extremely important issues that will, in the end, if they are followed, help the disability community as much as everybody else in our society.

Thank you. I admire you. I admire what you have done and what you have become, and you have my friendship. And I will do everything I can to work with you and Senator Harkin and Senator Kennedy and others, and Senator Durenberger in particular, and Senator Jeffords, to try and resolve these problems.

Mr. COELHO. Thank you, Senator.

Senator HARKIN. If the Senator would just yield on that point, I just want to let everyone know that Senator Hatch has been very open and forthcoming. As he said, we started meeting last December on this. We have had periodic meetings on it, not only at the staff level but also at our personal level. He has made some recommendations which we have already adopted, which I thought were very good, very good suggestions to help form this bill.

There are some things in there which we are continuing to discuss, and I just want you all to know that Senator Hatch and myself will continue these open discussions. I am sure that we will be able to reach a meaningful resolution of those differences.

The Chairman. Senator Jeffords.

Senator JEFFORDS. No questions, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Senator Metzenbaum.

Senator METZENBAUM. No questions.

The Chairman. Senator Durenberger.

Senator DURENBERGER. Just briefly. And, Mr. Chairman, I apologize for being late, but we just started Section 89 down in the Finance Committee. I have got to say there is, unfortunately, a lot more television cameras and all the rest of that sort of thing down in the Finance Committee concentrating on what was an obscure tax provision but also has to do with discrimination.

Tony, I just wanted to say to you that I am glad I got here in time for your sort of personal witness. I guess for all of us who wake up sometimes in the morning wondering, thinking, why do we do this sort of thing-which I know you and I have talked about from time to time-your statement about the ministry becomes very, very important in terms of the kinds of things that make you stay in a tough job.

I thought I should ask you this question because you may be the only politician, so to speak, sitting here today. But those of us who worked very hard on Grove City, I think we were sort of shockedand I will just talk about my own personal shock. I will not try to be collective about it. But I was shocked when I got back to my State and found in my political party this incredible opposition to what we had done here in Washington on Grove City.

My party, the Republicans-it has been called the Independent Republican Party since Watergate in Minnesota-has sort of become a membership organization for a lot of people who feel strongly about certain personal values.

I can remember the county convention of the largest county in our State, Hennepin County just closed down right after I got through making a speech because everybody, almost two-thirds of the people in the audience, were standing up holding signs "Repeal Grove City." And many of these people are living in some kind of fear that when any of us legislate the rights of persons with disabilities that somehow or other we are going to include in that definition a variety of disabilities or illnesses that have occurred because of certain kinds of sexual behavior, in particular.

And I know you have lived with this yourself-that is, the political side of this—and I just wonder if you would not have something to say to all of us who will have to go back out there fighting for persons with disabilities and meeting up with those folks who, every time we do this, somehow or other see it as an effort to promot certain kinds of sexual behavior.

Mr. COELHO. Senator, I appreciate very much your comments. The question is: Does somebody with a disability, medical disability of any sort, deserve to be discriminated against? I think the answer is overwhelmingly no.

Now, first off, we are a Nation that believes in whatever God you want to believe in, but we believe in a Supreme Being. And the Supreme Being basically is an individual who, in my mind, is someone who wants the lowest among us and the highest among us to be treated fairly and equally. Those with medical disabilities do not want any favors. They do not want any special treatment. They do

not really want anybody to go out of their way to help them. But they also do not want you to go out of your way to stop them or to hurt them. That is all we are asking for.

We are neutral on a lot of issues, but we want other people to be neutral, too. And that is all we are doing by giving us our basic civil rights: We are asking people to be neutral. And when I say neutral, I basically mean let me decide, or let my blind brother or my handicapped sister behind me decide, what we can or cannot do. Don't you decide for me, no matter what my illness is.

If you have some concerns about a particular illness or whatever in some other field, that is your business. But do not discriminate against me because of an illness or a handicap.

Let me tell you one quick story if the chairman does not mind. About 5 months ago, I had a family come to me. The mother was a cook at a high school, and the father was a janitor at the same high school. They had a son who was a teenager who had epilepsy that they did not permit to go to school because they were embarrassed. And they were now embarrassed that they had been embarrassed, and they wanted my help. They did not know how to get out of it.

We put this young man through a high school equivalency test, and they had taught him well. His only problem is that he had become socially handicapped. He did not know how to deal with people. And we have had a tough adjustment for this young man to deal with people.

All I am asking is give us a chance to go out and be with people, deal with people, deal with real life. Those of us who have handicaps, physically disabled in some way, we have to deal with our problem. Nobody else has to. We have to. In everyday life we have to. If others will let us deal with those problems, we can adjust.

Our problem is that people will not let us deal with our problem. They impose different standards on us than they do others. And that is all this bill addresses. It is very simple.

Senator DURENBERGER. Thank you.

The Chairman. Senator Adams.

Senator ADAMS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I just want to welcome Tony Coelho here, and I hope the rest of the family are well.

Mr. COELHO. Thank you, Brock.

Senator ADAMS. I support you in your fight. I think there are great difficulties that are faced in society where we have built many barriers without thinking. I hope we will think about them. I know there are great problems, particularly in housing and in transport areas, and I hope that in some way the experience some of us have had can be helpful in making these better and making the community a better place to live by making it accessible to all. I will never forget the first time we took down the curbs that supposedly were for the handicapped and those in wheelchairs. Those that benefited most were the mothers and the children. Mr. COELHO. That is right.

Senator ADAMS. Let us make it a better society. Thank you very much.

I have no further questions, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Senator Simon.